Ever since accused Boston bomber Dhzokhar Tsarnaev has been in custody, I've heard people say the same thing over and over again: "He'd better get the death penalty." People want to see justice be done, and their vision of justice involves death for the remaining Tsarnaev brother. But it may not go down that way.

As we know, the charge of guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction comes with a sentence of either life in prison or the death penalty. Two recent developments in the Boston bombing case have tilted the scales away from the death penalty and toward a life sentence.

Prosecutors announced Monday that they will seek the death penalty for James Holmes, the man charged with killing 12 and wounding dozens of others in last summer’s Colorado movie theater shooting spree. Arapahoe County DA George Brauchler said, “It’s my determination and my intention that in this case for James Eagan Holmes justice is death.”

The move was not unexpected, as the prosecution rejected a plea offer from Holmes’ lawyers last week. The offer would have exchanged life in prison without the possibility for parole for a guilty plea.

James Holmes, the only suspect in the Aurora, Colorado theater mass shooting, apparently doesn't want to die. Like most mass murderers, he doesn't value anyone's life -- except his own. (Adam Lanza didn't even value his own.) Reports are saying that Holmes' defense team submitted a plea deal yesterday -- Holmes would plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. Today, however, prosecutors reportedly rejected that plea.

For 22 years, a mom has been sitting on death row, haunted by a murder conviction. They said she was in on a plot to murder her 4-year-old son. Well, this week, Debra Milke's murder conviction was overturned.

She's free to leave the Arizona prison where she expected to end her life. Talk about a bittersweet victory.

The crime Kimberly McCarthy, an inmate in Texas, was convicted of committing is horrific. She murdered an elderly woman, stabbing her to death after she asked to borrow some sugar. Today, Williams will pay for that crime in the ultimate way. With her life.

McCarthy will be put to death by lethal injection. She will be one of the few women ever put to death since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. She will be number 13. Even though women commit about 10 percent of all crimes, death penalty crimes have to have some "extra" aggravating factor. Extra violence, extra cruelty. MCarthy's case certainly applies.

The case was infamous because of how awful it was. Her 71-year-old neighbor, Dorothy Booth, was trusting and allowed McCarthy into her home on July 21, 1997, only to be stabbed to death. She then cut off her ring finger and sold her diamond in a pawn shop. There is no doubt that the crime was evil. But the death penalty is still not right.

My gut reaction to the death penalty is that it's always wrong. That there's nothing that can justify it, and that it's state-sanctioned murder. But the scheduled execution of a Florida cop-turned-vigilante-killer makes me wonder if sometimes, just sometimes, the death penalty is the right thing to do.

Manuel Pardo was a decorated police officer before being fired for lying and going on a killing spree, murdering nine people over three months, and now he's scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 11. As I've said, murder = bad. But the reasons he says he did it gives me chills. I don't know if I am comfortable with this man being on this Earth.

Excuse me but did the convicted inmate recently executed for the rape and murder of two 13-year-old Arizona girls, Richard Dale Stokey, say what I think he said before meeting his maker recently for the 1991 crime? Perhaps I'm reading too much into the ramblings of a crazy person who's thankfully gone from this Earth anyway, but one of his last statements before they gave him the death shot was particularly baffling and inappropriate. Oh and this was after he refused to outright apologize to the families for the crimes. He said: "I do wish that I could die doing something meaningful, you know, this seems like such a waste." Yeah, ya think?

Just when you thought this election season couldn't get any nuttier, an Arkansas Republican named Charlie Fuqua came out of the woodwork with the most crazypants idea yet. The lawyer and candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives says we need to create a death penalty for "rebellious children."

Yes, you read that right. Death. Children. You see where the crazypants comes in, don't you?